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UG Krishnamurti, the iconoclastic non-guru who maintained that all human beings are concerned primarily, and exclusively, with their survival, is, in my opinion, correct. I was overwhelmed with this realization this morning when considering desire, and all its multifarious manifestations, including both “good desire” and “bad”. Desire, under whatever name, is what propels us through life -- it is the motivation for all human activity. By that, I mean desire for some thing, be it physical, mental, or ephemeral, or even spiritual. I suddenly realized, in bald clarity, that ALL desire, no matter how glamorous, how justifiable, how acceptable, how encouraged, how NOT encouraged, is simply, and only, a re-directed survival instinct. This is so obvious to me that I cannot understand why I did not see it before.

If one takes the time to investigate desire, it will, in the end, reveal itself to be an attempt by the individual who expresses that desire to maintain or obtain the promise of survival. It is only apparently obscure because it is so intellectualized and rationalized in order to remain undiscovered. There is no getting around this, even the holiest of desires is the instinct to survive. After all, what is heaven, but survival. What is re-incarnation, but survival. Even desire for “enlightenment” is desire for power, the power to change one’s life from suffering to joy, and subtly, indirectly, to persist in that state. And so forth. In contrast to this, the selfless acts that occur in dire situations and courageous moments, are just that - selfless - there is no desire involved at that moment. And if done for any other reason than through selflessness, then it is desire once again, and its motive is survival. If one interviews these people who have done such extraordinary selfless acts, they will without exception, state that they were not “there” when doing it. It was not a “conscious” act.

So, anyway, when one fully understands this basic premise, that we are motivated by the need to survive, one finally escapes the tyranny of desire and can see it for what it truly is. And let's face it, desire relentlessly drives us throughout our lives, and in turn, causes much suffering and unhappiness. (Granted, the momentary achievement of a desire will bring about happiness, but it is short lived and temporary, and is actually, I believe, experienced because of the momentary ceasing of desire for a short period of time, and within that moment, we experience peace, which we interpret to be happiness.) Without understanding the basis of desire, one is a prisoner of the instinct to survive, however pleasantly, or unpleasantly, this instinct may express itself.

There is no activity based upon desire that I can find, that does not, at base, seek to provide security against personal destruction. Thus, I say it again, UG had a point: survival is our basic motive in all we do as individual human beings, and the discovery of that, and the acceptance of that, is liberating to the extent it is revelatory of one’s motivations. Once uncovered and revealed, the desire and motive behind it no longer holds one prisoner, one is essentially liberated from that imperative, it does not bind one any longer. That is, of course, all it does, but that kind of liberation is nothing to sneeze at, in my mind. One becomes free of an awful lot of conditioning in that very realization.

Incidentally, UG died this past spring at 88. Of course, who or what died, and who was UG?

Anna wrote

I suddenly realized, in bald clarity, that ALL desire, no matter how glamorous, how justifiable, how acceptable, how encouraged, how NOT encouraged, is simply, and only, a re-directed survival instinct. This is so obvious to me that I cannot understand why I did not see it before. If one takes the time to investigate desire, it will, in the end, reveal itself to be an attempt by the individual who expresses that desire to maintain or obtain the promise of survival.

Good post, well stated.

Sri Nisargadatta observes:

Sri Nisargadatta: There are no needs, desires only.
Questioner: To eat, to drink, to shelter one's body, to live?
N: The desire to live is the one fundamental desire. All else depends on it.
Q: We live, because we must.
N: We live because we crave sensory existence.

The question then becomes, is the imperative to which UG and Anna refer the survival instinct of the body (the biological organism) to continue being alive or the desire of the Self for continued sensory experience?

Or are those two the same thing? Not to mention, does it make any difference?

Consider this. Last evening, Nancy and I watched the movie Field of Dreams in which Kevin Costner, an Iowa farmer, is moved by “a voice” to build a baseball field in his corn field. Among the events that occur when he does so, is Shoeless Joe Jackson, one of the Chicago Black Sox players banned from the game after the 1919 World Series gambling scandal, appears on the field even though he is long since dead.

Jackson and the Kevin Costner character play catch, after which Jackson says, “Man, I love this game! I’d have played for food money.”

There it is: “Man, I love this game!” The more I think about it, the more I subscribe to Nisargadatta’s suggestion that it is all about sensory experience. The Infinite One, being all there is, cannot experience sight, touch, taste, and so on, cannot enjoy relationship, cannot feel joy, fear, dread, affection, regret, remorse, and so on. And so He (whatever) manifests Himself as us! We are simply the Divine as Sensory Receptors.

UG is right, too. In order for the Divine's plan to work, we have to identify with the biological organism we seem to be inhabiting (so that we can experience its sensory capability). The body has a survival instinct precisely because it too is a manifestation of the Infinite One which, being Infinite, has an inherent "eternity" gene which the body manifests as the survival instinct. Identifying with the body, we adopt that instinct as our own.

Admittedly oversimplified here (and maybe insane), this makes sense to me.

Parenthetically, it’s a fun movie, even if you aren’t a baseball fan.

ZooFence wrote:

The more I think about it, the more I subscribe to Nisargadatta’s suggestion that it is all about sensory experience. The Infinite One, being all there is, cannot experience sight, touch, taste, and so on, cannot enjoy relationship, cannot feel joy, fear, dread, love, and so on. And so He (whatever) manifests Himself as us! We are simply the Divine as Sensory Receptors.

It seems that if this is so, then the ideas of Zen, which is to be fully aware and present in the moment is exactly what we are meant to be doing here. I fight against some of the ideas on this forum, because I still haven't unlearned the belief that we are to be striving for something when maybe that is not at all what it is about.

Dadaji is saying much the same thing too I think.

I still haven't unlearned the belief that we are to be striving for something when maybe that is not at all what it is about

For me, that is always in the background: shouldn’t I be doing something constructive and meaningful? Then I remember all Teachers telling me: Do something constructive and meaningful within yourself, and that will radiate into every corner of the world. Society teaches us so differently, it is very hard.

The Infinite One, being all there is, cannot experience sight, touch, taste, and so on, cannot enjoy relationship, cannot feel joy, fear, dread, affection, regret, remorse, and so on. And so He (whatever) manifests Himself as us! We are simply the Divine as Sensory Receptors.

I am constantly astounded how desperately determined we are, the lengths we will go to, to fashion a theology that fits and justifies our belief of existence as other than One Infinite All and Only Presence. Of course it should come as no surprise that nothing can limit finite identification when we recognize What is doing the identifying.

I am constantly astounded how desperately determined we are, the lengths we will go to, to fashion a theology that fits and justifies our belief of existence as other than One.

In Islam, one of the names of Allah is Al-Qayyum, the Ever Self-Existing One. The book The Most Beautiful Names, says of Al-Qayyum, “All exists because of Him”.

Consider that our being astounded, on the one hand, as well as all our assorted fashioning on the other hand, exist like everything else because of Him, by His Design, there being no other possible or plausible or complete explanation.

Here, again, the challenge for us as seekers is to see all of it as the Identical Immutable Divine.